DTV is really a scam to sell cable

DTVUSA Rookie

This whole DTV thing is a scam. It's the stockholders forcing us, via our frustration, to buy cable television. It's only a matter of time before we all get fed up enough and purchase cable. Otherwise how can anyone explain such a mess as this DTV, in an era of incredible technology. The stockholders are making fools of us.

DTVUSA Member

This whole DTV thing is a scam. It's the stockholders forcing us, via our frustration, to buy cable television. It's only a matter of time before we all get fed up enough and purchase cable. Otherwise how can anyone explain such a mess as this DTV, in an era of incredible technology. The stockholders are making fools of us.

kenny52711957, Welcome to the forum. I think the consensus is, most people are satisfied with OTA DTV. We are here to help others with any issues they may be having. This is your first post and you haven't even given anyone a chance to make the DTV transition successful for you. Are you have problems or just here to vent your opinion?

DTVUSA Member

Yes, this DTV transition is enough of a scary roller coaster ride to make anyone sick, but just bear with it. If you upgrade your antenna, and get a good pre-amp with gain control in place, the ride will be smoother. Won't set you back more than $350, unless you need to replace your twinlead wires with coaxial.

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See, as I've said before, that's the problem with it, though. This is not the right economy to ask folks to spend money on new antennas and wiring. Granted, they couldn't know that ten years ago when the date was set, but never the less, that's the reality. There's no help for low income people who don't have $400 for this. It's a huge problem that unless you have, many just don't care about.

Banned

But without spending money we're not helping the economy either. that's one of the factors hurting it. that and the fact we're boosting China's economy with their products always infiltrating our stores and 'Built In USA' no longer exists to help with USA's manufacturing and subsequent boosting of our own economy. i mean really is it any surprise the Yen has long surpassed the Dollar?

Use eBay Canada search to search for products. The country where it's being sold from is shown to you plainly in the results list. Can't see that info with eBay USA search, which makes it difficult to avoid products being sold from China. You have to click in the listing, and sometimes that info is so well concealed.

DTVUSA Member

DTVUSA Jr. Member

But without spending money we're not helping the economy either. that's one of the factors hurting it. that and the fact we're boosting China's economy with their products always infiltrating our stores and 'Built In USA' no longer exists to help with USA's manufacturing and subsequent boosting of our own economy. i mean really is it any surprise the Yen has long surpassed the Dollar?

Banned

You cannot buy any new technology product that isn't made overseas any more. the days of USA electronics and computers died off back when MS-DOS was still a primary OS in computers. so unless one wants to go back to a IBM XT you have no choice. the digital converters are all made in China.

I'm still sick of having to shop and select English or Espanol. i'm a damn American!!! This is America, speak English!

Other than the China crap, i'm so sick of illegals milking the system.

DTVUSA Member

The reality is that we are all to blame: We drive the marketplace by our purchasing behaviors. It is about time that we stop looking for other people to blame (whether it is the cable company, Wall Street, the FCC, Walmart, or China!) and start accepting our own personal accountability for how things are. No, you cannot control what other people do, but you can influence them to do what you personally think is the right thing, i.e., to pay more for a higher quality product, to pay more for an American-made product, etc. The fact that our mass-market consumer marketplace is dominated by cheap, foreign-made products is because you (meaning all of us) haven't convinced our fellow citizens that that's a problem. That's your (our) failure, not anyone else's.

DTVUSA Member

See, as I've said before, that's the problem with it, though. This is not the right economy to ask folks to spend money on new antennas and wiring. Granted, they couldn't know that ten years ago when the date was set, but never the less, that's the reality. There's no help for low income people who don't have $400 for this. It's a huge problem that unless you have, many just don't care about.

Actually this change was in the news way before the economy went south so people have known for quite sometime. In many US areas that are urban you really could not watch TV without cable so the transition was no big deal, now the rural areas thats another story.

Contributor

You cannot buy any new technology product that isn't made overseas any more. the days of USA electronics and computers died off back when MS-DOS was still a primary OS in computers. so unless one wants to go back to a IBM XT you have no choice. the digital converters are all made in China.

I'm still sick of having to shop and select English or Espanol. i'm a damn American!!! This is America, speak English!

Other than the China crap, i'm so sick of illegals milking the system.

Some illegals may milk the system, but at least their intentions are in the right place. What ticks me off are the corporate executives who have outright cost this country billions upon billions of dollars "milking the system".

The reality is that we are all to blame: We drive the marketplace by our purchasing behaviors. It is about time that we stop looking for other people to blame (whether it is the cable company, Wall Street, the FCC, Walmart, or China!) and start accepting our own personal accountability for how things are. No, you cannot control what other people do, but you can influence them to do what you personally think is the right thing, i.e., to pay more for a higher quality product, to pay more for an American-made product, etc. The fact that our mass-market consumer marketplace is dominated by cheap, foreign-made products is because you (meaning all of us) haven't convinced our fellow citizens that that's a problem. That's your (our) failure, not anyone else's.

Yeah but isn't it so much easier to blame someone else than to be held accountable? Americans want cheap quality made products, yet they want to complain about it when it's costing them jobs to have these products. One of the arguements against Wal-Mart is that they underpay their employees and do not provide adequate health insurance. In effect, costing tax payers and city Governments money in the areas they're built. It's never stopped me from shopping there, but I do think that things like that need to be addressed.

Hey there Bobby, It really all depends on the location though. Bunny ears only work for people who are Line of Sight and less than 15-20 miles from broadcast towers. I know you're talking about Canadian dollars there, but $69.99 CND seems kind of expensive for an indoor bunny ears antenna? Do you remember the brand name at all that your brother bought?

Contributor

The reality is that we are all to blame: We drive the marketplace by our purchasing behaviors. It is about time that we stop looking for other people to blame (whether it is the cable company, Wall Street, the FCC, Walmart, or China!) and start accepting our own personal accountability for how things are. No, you cannot control what other people do, but you can influence them to do what you personally think is the right thing, i.e., to pay more for a higher quality product, to pay more for an American-made product, etc. The fact that our mass-market consumer marketplace is dominated by cheap, foreign-made products is because you (meaning all of us) haven't convinced our fellow citizens that that's a problem. That's your (our) failure, not anyone else's.

DTVUSA Rookie

This whole DTV thing is a scam. It's the stockholders forcing us, via our frustration, to buy cable television. It's only a matter of time before we all get fed up enough and purchase cable. Otherwise how can anyone explain such a mess as this DTV, in an era of incredible technology. The stockholders are making fools of us.

On the contrary, DTV caused me to cancel cable and go OTA and I am saving $1000/yr. Admittedly, there is a learning curve, but over time, more will realize that with HD OTA and many other mediums, cable is not worth the $.

Banned

The best method so far i've done was put a separate antenna for UHF and another purely VHF-only one for VHF channels (RTV/NBC was MIA post-June 12th since they went to *ugh* VHF) and use a dual-adapter (one of those matching transformers that you use with twin-lead antennas but with separate 'VHF' and 'UHF'-in ports) and then the box uses the UHF antenna for UHF channels then uses the VHF antenna for channels in VHF. from my experience the biggest issues are when the antenna is both UHF/VHF. sometimes they interfere with each other don't ask me to explain.